“I expect to be surprised by what uses people find for it. Of course, we hope to mine the data for more scientific results — as we have only scratched the surface on that — but the non-scientific applications are just as exciting.” — Stephen Morris

New research by University of Toronto geologists James Mungall and James Brenan, along with colleagues in Australia and France, suggests ore deposits of gold and other precious metals formed near Earth’s surface after floating upwards on vapour bubbles released from magma chambers deep inside the planet’s crust.

If winning a Nobel Prize is like winning an Oscar for lifetime achievement, the six University of Toronto scholars awarded Sloan Research Fellowhips today must feel as though they’ve been nominated rising stars for their debut films.

“I have always held the view that philosophers should try to make a difference in matters of public policy, that we have skills that we can bring to the table and that it’s a shame if we don’t do that on whatever issue happens to animate us.” — Wayne Sumner

“Our work suggests we still maybe don’t have the best understanding of what traits might be influencing these extinctions, although now we have the understanding that sexual dimorphism is an important trait.” — Stephen De Lisle

Chemist Aaron Wheeler (on right) was awarded an E.W.R. Steacie Fellowship to support his work in the emerging field of microfluidics, while astrophysicist Jérémy Leconte received the NSERC Howard Alper Postdoctoral Prize for his investigations into the climate of planets outside our solar system and their ability to support life.

“The idea that Muslims hold values that make it difficult for them to integrate into Canadian society is misguided — it also suggests how international politics can affect our attitudes toward immigrants.” — Jeff Reitz

A study led by atmospheric physicists at U of T finds that global warming will not lead to an overall increasingly stormy atmosphere, a topic debated by scientists for decades. Instead, strong storms will become stronger while weak storms become weaker, and the cumulative result of the number of storms will remain unchanged.

The Tar Sands in Alberta, potential development in the Ring of Fire in northern Ontario, declining timber harvest and farming — human activity is transforming Canada’s landscape, yet many of the country’s aquatic resources remain unprotected, according to research by ecologists at the University of Toronto.

In January 2015, Professor Bryan Gaensler began his tenure as Director of the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Toronto. Gaensler is a leading international researcher in cosmic magnetism, supernova explosions and interstellar gas.

Gun violence is an ugly reality of life in North America. But how does it affect our cities or the social fabric of our neighbourhoods? University of Toronto assistant professor Jooyoung Lee is delving into this issue.

Christine Le’s been cited as a rising star for her research on designing more efficient and environmentally-friendly methods to create molecules that are mainly used by pharmaceutical drug and chemical manufacturing industries.

An invasive ant species that has become increasingly abundant in eastern North America not only takes over yards and delivers a nasty sting, it’s helping the spread of an invasive plant species. The ants are very effective dispersers of invasive plant seeds and new research suggests that together they could wreak havoc on native ecosystems.

You’re the boss of a department. Work’s chugging along just like always, but you know there’s room to improve and do things better. So how do you motivate your team to innovate and thus help your organization thrive?

A team of scientists, led by the University of Toronto’s Barbara Sherwood Lollar, has mapped the location of hydrogen-rich waters found trapped kilometres beneath Earth’s surface in rock fractures in Canada, South Africa and Scandinavia.

“If we want to understand how genes are turned on and off, we need to know where the sequences that perform this function are located in the genome. The parts of the human genome linked to complex diseases such as heart disease, cancer and neurological disorders can often be far away from the genes they regulate, so it can be difficult to figure out which gene is being affected and ultimately causing the disease.”

Hamish Russell never expected that his research on tax avoidance would lead to financial gain in the form of the inaugural Amartya Sen Prize, named for the Nobel laureate renowned for his work in welfare economics.

Scientists have long known that air pollution caused by cars and trucks, solvent use and even plants, is reduced when broken down by naturally occurring compounds that act like detergents of the atmosphere. What has not been well understood until now are the relative contributions of all the processes producing such compounds.

Canada is the only G8 country without overland flood insurance, something that needs to change quickly, given the rapidly increasing number of catastrophic weather events taking place here, Kathy Bardswick told an audience of businesspeople and academics gathered at the U of T Faculty Club.

University of Toronto physicist Kaley Walker has helped solve the scientific mystery behind the recent increase in ozone-depleting chemicals in the lower stratosphere of the Northern Hemisphere, despite a 25-year old ban on chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).

A study led by University of Toronto psychology researchers has found that people who play action video games such as Call of Duty or Assassin’s Creed seem to learn a new sensorimotor skill more quickly than non-gamers do.

“Everything I learned about doing archeology prior to this was theoretical,” said Kaitlyn Smid, a St. Michael’s College student studying archeology and Classical civilization. “It was helpful to use the tools I learned during my studies in a true excavation. I learned much more than I had expected.”

Hexaplex trunculus. It sounds like a Harry Potter spell, although there’s nothing particularly magical about this species of sea snail common in the warm waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Still, these tiny purplish mollusks are an important piece of an enormous puzzle that’s been perplexing Carl Knappett for years.

Twenty-one U of T scholars — including 12 from the Faculty of Arts & Science — have been named Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) this year, more than the university has ever seen inducted in a single year.

A new study by Robert Brym and four PhD students — Melissa Godbout, Andreas Hoffbauer, Gabe Menard, and Tony Huiquan Zhang — in the University of Toronto’s Department of Sociology, suggests social media’s role was not as significant as some have suggested.

How do you stop a killer plant that wastes thousands of acres of crops each year? If you are cell & systems biologist Peter McCourt, you try to trick the ruthless weed into committing botanical suicide.

A new study shows that while the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) has significantly reduced some of the toxins that contribute to smog, the city continues to violate the Canada-wide standards for ozone air pollution.

Nicholas Everett — an associate professor in the Department of History and an expert in the history of medicine — argues that many ancient and medieval treatments, which were often mixtures of plants, minerals and animal products, were neither ineffective nor placebos — although he admits a few were lethal.

Sometimes an invention makes so much sense that the public is amazed it hasn’t been created previously. Such is the case with the scientific research knowledge graph and web platform constructed by ScienceScape, a start-up company founded in 2010 by Sam Molyneux, a University of Toronto PhD student in biomedical physics, and his sister, Amy Molyneux, a web developer and technical project manager.

NASA announced last week that the next rover, being sent to Mars in 2020, will carry seven highly sophisticated instruments to conduct unprecedented science and exploration technology investigations on the Red Planet. The instruments were selected from 58 proposals received from researchers and engineers around the world and Rebecca Ghent of the University of Toronto’s Department of Earth Sciences is on the team behind one of the carefully chosen winners: a ground-penetrating radar known as RIMFAX.

It’s summer, but in the Arctic that translates to temperatures around 0 degrees Celsius, rather than sunbathing weather. Nonetheless, you’ll hear no complaints from chemists Jonathan Abbatt and Jennifer Murphy, and their graduate students, who spent a slice of July and August surrounded by sea ice as they studied the chemical processes involved in atmospheric change at the molecular level.

The classic definition of a biological species is the ability to breed within its group, and the inability to breed outside it. A study published in the journal PLOS Biology offers some important clues about the evolution of barriers to breeding.

The opportunity to learn about a revolutionary technology that could significantly advance microfluidics research brought scientists from Brazil, England, Taiwain and elsewhere to Aaron Wheeler’s chemistry laboratory this week. They came to learn how to use DropBot, a technology that bolsters microfluidics by adding a digital component.

The Alphabet of Galen is a major resource for understanding the richness and diversity of medical history. Originating in Late Antiquity, this index describes the medicinal uses for nearly three hundred metals, aromatics, animal materials and herbs. Nicholas Everett of the Department of History offers an English translation of the original Latin text and adds commentary on the extensive evidence the AG circulated over several centuries among medical authorities, including Hippocrates, Galen of Pergamum, Soranus, and Pseudo-Apuleius.

Randall Hansen’s latest book, Disobeying Hitler: German Resistance After Operation Valkyrie is about the period following the last attempt on Hitler’s life and the impact German resistance had on the final months of World War II.

Testing for cocaine and other drugs usually involves two steps: a quick on-site prescreen and then a more accurate confirmatory test at a laboratory. This process can often take days or weeks — far too long in many cases where public safety can be at risk. Now, a team of researchers report development of a backpack-sized device that can perform highly accurate and sensitive tests anywhere within 15 minutes.